Ahead of a chat with Civilization 7 creative director Ed Beach, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the veteran designer played a hand in making one of my all-time favorite strategy games. That would be The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth 2 – specifically its Rise of the Witch King expansion – for which Beach was executive producer.
With dual campaigns that let you save Middle-earth or sack it, along with some devilishly replayable skirmish maps, the 2006 real-time strategy title can be credited with introducing a bunch of console-heads to the traditionally PC-centric world of RTS games. Two decades later, I still have a soft spot for Battle for Middle-earth 2 – as does Beach.
